Never Stop Breathing
by Freida Right
Summary: Edward has to travel to Mysidia, to have his tonsils removed. When the twins try to calm him, they kind of only make things worse. However, surgery may not be the big deal the spoony one was expecting...


Those in a certain forum are well aware that my youngest brother just had his tonsils and adenoid removed, to solve his raging sleep apnea. For those of you who are not aware, it will be explained momentarily... In the form of a fic!

This does not tie in with TAY, by the way-this follows my established _Faraxhae Family Chronicles_ canon, in which Faraxhae is the twin's last name, their father, Jackie, is a part of the big picture, and Tellah was their uncle.

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_Never Stop Breathing_

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The change in Edward's sleep had happened suddenly, not too long after the war ended. All of a sudden, we woke up feeling less and less rested, and everyone who slept near his bedroom complained that he had begun to snore badly. Some people even said, in the long hours when in his snoring kept them awake, they could swear they heard him stop breathing entirely.

Concerned, he had gone to the court physician. After describing his problem and answering a few questions, the physician had come to a quick conclusion: the glands in the young king's throat were swelling in his sleep, blocking up his breathing and causing his snore, frequently swelling enough to keep him from breathing at all.

Edward had felt faint at the diagnosis. As a singer, it was embarrassing; as a living being that needed oxygen to survive, it was frightening. The physician had ruminated on it for a few days, carefully monitoring the king's restless sleep and trying to arrive at an explanation for the change. Such things often developed over age, or through weight gain and genes.

Or perhaps it was recoil from his treatment in Troia, at the hands of _female_ doctors, which the physician was fully against. Edward couldn't agree with that-the Troians had treated him excellently, with more patience than his own doctor could have mustered, and he refused to believe they could have done this to him. He decided for himself, this condition probably just ran in his family. When he had thought of it, his mother's brothers had snored very loudly for as long as he could remember.

After a few days of observation, the physician had also came up with a solution.

"I remember back when your mother had the same problem," he had said slowly. "I had her sent to Mysidia for treatment. They have the skill to fully remove these troublesome glands, so that they need never bother you again. It was certainly so for your mother. She never snored again."

"That is good," Edward had agreed, trying to be optimistic. It sounded rather drastic.

"The surgery is a simple procedure, done in a few hour's time. For you, perhaps the recovery period will take some time; but if your mother could handle it so well as a girl, I suppose its nothing you should be afraid of. I can contact a doctor in Mysidia and ready an appointment if you wish, my lord."

At the word _surgery_, Edward hadn't been able to help blanching. He hadn't thought it would be easy... When the physician noticed the look on his face, he shook his head.

"It is a minimally invasive procedure, and you will be asleep for it. The recovery is a bit painful, but nothing you can't handle, I'm sure."

"If its so easy, why weren't my uncles treated?"

"A man who snores is one thing," the physician had dismissed, "but a princess? Who would want to marry a snoring princess?"

Edward had been slightly offended by that. His father would have married his mother in any case, snore or no snore, and he would have loved it as much as he had loved the rest of her.

He had smiled to himself, lovingly remembering that Anna had had a light snore, herself. It had embarrassed her to no end, but he had never minded in the least. He wondered, then, if she had gotten it from her own father, and if Tellah had suffered from his same problem...

Nonetheless, the prospect of a surgery bothered Edward intensely. Deciding not to let the nervous young man have a say in it, the physician had hurried to contact a white Mage friend of his. A proper _male_ doctor, he had commented many times. Edward chose to let his knowledgable physician take charge, here. Whether or not the surgery scared him, he knew he needed it. He hadn't slept well in months, and he needed all the strength he could get. Damcyan depended so badly on his leadership, they were still so badly ravaged from the war. And he couldn't lead them like this.

And so he had been sent to Mysidia, under direct orders from his physician to just trust the doctor and do whatever he said. Edward had already managed to deviate from that pledge: when the doctor had offered him a room in his practice's patient wing, he had declined. Somehow, the twins had known he was coming; when he had arrived, he had found them waiting for him. They had tackled him with a pair of enormous hugs, and had begged him to stay his visit at their house.

"We have a room ready for you and everything!" Palom had insisted. "You've gotta stay with us!"

"You're practically family," Porom had added. "Please?"

He hadn't been able to refuse their pleading. He had let them lead him by the hand back to their house, where their parents-Jackie and Mira-were waiting for them with milk and freshly baked oatmeal cookies.

It had been some time since Edward had been with the charming young family. It was good to see them again.

However, the next morning, he found that perhaps the twins now regretted inviting him to stay.

"They weren't kidding," Palom complained, rubbing his eyes. "That's a killer snore. You really do need to get something done about that."

"Well, that's why I'm here," Edward agreed, feeling rather poorly, himself. "It seemed like I slept deeply, but it feels like I didn't sleep at all."

"And this surgery will help you?" Porom asked, fascinated. "That must be exciting."

"It's terrifying, actually. Oh, I thought I was done with hospital beds for a while..."

"It can't be that bad. You had, like, every bone in your body broken, before. That's got to be way worse," Palom insisted.

"I don't like knives."

"Neither do we, but we're not scared of them," Palom pointed out, flailing his arms around as if he were stabbing monsters.

"I'm very interested in this condition now," Poor, commented thoughtfully. "I didn't know it was a thing that could happen. But now that I do, I'm kind of excited! Maybe someday, I can learn to help people who have it. I'll have to look it up at school today."

When they left for school not long thereafter, Porom was practically skipping and Palom couldn't understand how she could be so peppy after a long night and little sleep. After they had gone, Edward asked his hostess if he had really been _that_ loud the night before.

"I'm afraid so," she admitted. "It's good of you to want something done about it as quickly as possible. I swear, you must have stopped breathing four or five times last night. And that was frightening."

Yes, indeed it was. And on so many levels, too. Edward spent the rest of the day reading, trying to take his mind off the looming operation. If he could find some inspiration for a song in one of the family's many books, so much the better.

_The strongest emotions are always the best inspiration for great music. And I know a thing or two about that very personally. I wonder what it will sound like, when its done?_

That afternoon, the twins returned from school with a pile of books, looking very excited.

"Edward, we have good news!" Porom announced. "We did a bunch of research today, and we have some ideas to help you be less scared."

"We're gonna practice the operation with you," Palom continued, holding up one of his books. "We looked up the anesthesia, and where they'll cut you open, and the stuff they're gonna take out and everything! We'll show you exactly how it'll be, and how totally _not_ scary it is, and you'll feel tons better about it."

Edward wasn't so sure about that. He wished Palom didn't insist on being so graphic about it, but then white magic wasn't his area of study. He had to make the most off it somehow. The bloodier and more gorey it was, the better. Which made Edward's stomach clench.

Still, a little practice would be nice, he supposed. Maybe it would turn out to be less of a big deal than he had thought. So he let the twins lead him back to his room, and he sat down on the bed.

"I'll be the doctor," Porom decided, putting on her most serious doctor face. "And Palom will be my nurse."

"Aw, that's not fair! I wanted to be the doctor and _you_ be the nurse! You're the girl."

"It'll be just like in Troia," Porom went on, ignoring her brother. "Does that help any?"

"It does, a little," Edward admitted.

"Good! Palom, be a good nurse and get him ready."

"Porom, stop it. This is so embarrassing..."

"That means you'll give him the shot."

"Oh... Cool!"

Maybe Palom was cheered, but Edward wasn't. He didn't know there would be a shot; and he hated needles as much as he hated knives. Oblivious to his nervousness, the boy marched right up to him and cleared his throat.

"Right, then. I'm going to give you the anesthesia shot. It'll make you go to sleep during the operation."

"Can't you just cast Sleep? I'd like that much better."

"It's not enough. You'd wake up in the middle of the surgery, and you'd feel all the pain while you were asleep. So, yeah, I have to drug you."

Well, that was deucedly unfair. Edward tentatively held out his arm, and Palom studied it for a few minutes with a look of pretend, intense concentration.

"Hm... Doctor Porom, which vein is it? There's a bunch."

"Try the big one," she suggested dryly, slightly peeved by the ineptness of her nurse.

"Oh yeah... Okay then, hold still."

Spotting the big blue vein just below Edward's pale skin, the boy suddenly brought his fist down as hard as he could on it. The king yanked his arm away, rubbing what he was sure would be a bruise later.

"That was uncalled for! I thought we were just pretending!"

"I don't know how bad its going to hurt," Palom answered with a shrug. "I thought we should be prepared."

"Okay, okay, that's enough," Porom interjected, shooing her brother out of the way. "The book says the anesthetic should start working in a few minutes, so go ahead and lie down. Pretend your asleep."

Edward did as he was told, glad to be under the care of an actual white Mage now. He lay down on his back, while Porom gave Palom some directions.

"Nurse Palom, I need you to get some knives and spoons from the kitchen, okay? And some rags and a bowl of water, and a plate to hold all my tools."

"Sure," he agreed, and hurried off. The she came to stand beside the bed, looking every inch a mini doctor.

"Good afternoon, I'm doctor Porom, and I will be performing your operation today," she said with a smile.

"Thank goodness. I have all the faith in the world in you, doctor."

She leaned over him with a stern face and pressed her small hand to his throat, making thoughtfull humming noises as she did so.

"It looks like you have some swollen glands in there. We'll have to remove them. But don't worry, I'll be very careful."

"I trust you, doctor."

"Good! Now, since this is only pretend, you can ask me any questions you want during the surgery. But try to keep it down-I have to focus."

"Of course."

She picked up her books and opened them up on the side of the bed for reference. She she waited for Palom to return with her tools, she studied the pages a final time.

"It's a lot of trouble these little glands cause, sometimes. It's kid of silly, don't you think?"

"What do they do, anyway? They must be there for a reason."

"We'll, the book says that the tonsils help prevent infections. When you're sick, they swell up to help fight the sickness-and that's why you get a sore throat when you've got a cold. Neat, huh? And then there's this goofy gland all the way at the back of your nose called the adenoid that no one really knows what it's for. It also gets swollen when you're sick, so doctors think its got something to do with the tonsils, too."

"Then why get rid of them, if they fight illness? I need all the help with that I can get!"

"Well, if they get infected fighting the illness, they keep swelling and swelling, and we can't really cure that yet. So they have to come out. This happens a lot to children-I have a lot of friends who've had this done. Palom and I haven't needed it; but mom and dad think we should have it done, anyway. Kids get sick all the time, you know. There's a lot of risk of those glands getting infected, since they work so hard at keeping us well."

"And when they swell, it keeps you from breathing? I suppose that makes sense. Why does it only happen at night? I have no problems breathing during the day."

"Maybe they just relax at night, while your body is at rest. I'm not sure yet; we're still looking that up."

Finally Palom returned with his arms full of things from the kitchen.

"Mom helped me find everything we needed," he announced. "She says its good that we're helping you, so you won't be so scared. But she also warned us not to scare you even more. I don't know _what_ she meant by that."

"I know very well what she means by that," Porom retorted, taking a plate full of silverware from him. Selecting a plain butter knife, she began poking at different spots on his throat. Edward tried not to shudder at the cool metal. It was only pretend, but it was still a knife pressed to his throat.

"There are two tonsils-one here, and one here. All we do is make a slight incision here, Nader the jaw, on either side of the throat, so we can just sever the connection and pull them out. Feel how hollow it is there? Its easy."

"What about the one in his nose?"

"We can just reach into his head and get it. We don't need to do any cuting for that one, actually. See? Doesn't that make you feel better, Edward?"

It didn't, really. In fact, he was paling at the very idea of two incisions, and things being ripped out of his face.

"Alright, I think we're ready to begin the procedure. It's only a _pretend _procedure, okay? I'm going to just trace the cut with my knife, very slowly..."

As she gently moved the tip of the butter knife across th side of his throat, Edward felt something just give out. It was entirely too much. All of a sudden, he had fainted.

It must have been a while later when he came to. Opening his eyes, he saw that twins had left, and their moth was sitting beside him again with a rueful smile.

"Ah, he wakes," Mira commented. "You had my children scared for a moment there. They thought they had actually killed you."

"Oops... I'm sorry," he sighed. "How long have I been out?"

"Only an hour or so. I know they meant to help you, but it seems to me they've only managed to scare you."

"It was kind of them to try," he admitted, sitting up a bit. "I'm not going to stop being nervous until this is all behind me."

"It's a good thing the operation isn't far off, then. In the meantime, you really shouldn't worry. The doctor knows what he's doing, believe me. And when it's all over, we'll all be here to look after you."

That did calm him, finally. He didn't care who his doctors were, or how skilled they were. He could trust this family with his very life, more than any doctor in the world.

"You know, we've thought about securing this surgery for the twins soon," Mira went on thoughtfully. "It happens so easily to children. And many of their friends have already had it done, after it was already a problem. We haven't spoken to them about it... But it may very well happen in the near future."

"I'm sure they'll weather it better than I. It could take me weeks and weeks to recover fully. But Palom and Porom are both strong children. They'll be alright."

"Isn't that the truth," she agreed proudly. "We'll then, I should see about stocking up chicken soup and pudding. It will be about all you'll be able to eat for a while."

"No, no, that's not nessecary. I should be home, with my people, in any case."

"Nonsense. You will stay right here where I can see you, until you're strong enough to travel again. You'll be in no condition to go anywhere for a while. Healing takes time, no matter how sturdy we may be. And I refuse to leave you under the care of a man who doesn't understand that healing is what women do by nature."

Edward couldn't help be very grateful for that. "He hasn't met you, Mira. You could teach him a thing or two."

"To be sure. Now settle down, and I'll bring you some tea for your nerves."

Wow, it was nice to have a mother fussing over him again. Mira was a proud woman of an equally proud lineage, and the last thing she would want to be called was doting. But Edward couldn't help it-she was a very doting sort of mother. If he had been the parent of two small children, who had been around the world and helped save it before the age of seven, he supposed he would have been a bit protective, too.

_She would have liked my mother very much. Her brother and niece certainly did, and the twins would have loved her, too. And to think, we were never even aware that this family existed, all the way across the ocean. I'm glad that Tellah, at least, hit to meet them. I'll just have to enjoy them enough for the three of us..._

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The morning of the surgery, Edward was nothing but nerves. But when he arrived at the doctor's office, he quickly found that his fretting really had been in vain. The doctor was patient and calm with him, and his nurses were kind and very gentle. They had laughed a little at the bruise on his arm, from where Palom had punched him; the shot they administered amazingly didn't hurt as much. Maybe the twins had prepared him well, after all.

The anesthesia took hold even faster than he had expected, and he was soon shambling to the operating table, only vaguely aware of what was going on. He blinked his eyes... And suddenly, the surgery was over and he felt little worse for wear. He couldn't believe it had really happened so quickly and painlessly. After a final look over, he was handed back his own clothes to change into from his hospital gown, and being released.

"Your physician had sent me a note last night, reminding me to keep you in the patient wing over the first few nights," the doctor commented. "However, I think it best for your own sake to return you to the Farxhaes. They've kept you well the last few days, and I believe they will continue to do so. Mira is an adept healer in her own right, for a red Mage, and she knows your personal needs better than I do. At any rate, you will recover faster and better, if you make yourself comfortable; and something tells me that hospitals make you uncomfortable, indeed."

That was a fact and a half. Edward found his host and hostess waiting to collect him, and they walked back to their house together.

"I can't believe it," he commented, gingerly touching the pair of stitched scars under his jaw. "I feel perfectly fine."

Mira patted his shoulder sympathetically. "Aw, child, that will go away."

"Give it a few hours, and your throat will be abysmal," Jackie warned. "Try not to speak too much. It will only make it worse."

"It's called the honeymoon period," Mira elaborated. "The first few hours after any surgery, you feel as though nothing is really different. You feel like you could run and jump and scream as loud as you can, just because. Perhaps you do, just to spite the gods," she said, mockingly shaking her fist at the sky. "But then, by the next morning, the gods are punishing you by making your life miserable."

"...Best not to spite them, then," he agreed, lowering his voice to a whisper. "No singing for joy today."

When they got back, Mira immediately shooed him back to his bed.

"Now you lie down and make yourself comfortable, and I'll bring you some soup. I imagine you must be hungry."

He was. He hadn't eaten since the afternoon before, and hadn't been allowed to drink more than a sip of water since early that morning because the anesthesia. Now he was ravenous, and a bowl of warm soup was more than welcome. He wasn't allowed to eat anything more solid than soup and an occasional cup of pudding while he recovered, either. Not a bad diet for the next week or so, he decided. It seemed like any child's dream come true, to eat nothing but soup and pudding for days on end.

He wondered, though, if he would ever want to look at pudding again, by the time this was over...

The honeymoon hours ended much sooner than a few hours, and Edward felt the fatigue strike him with a vengeance. His whole upper body felt stiff, and his throat was unimaginably sore. At some point early in the afternoon, he fell asleep; when he woke again, he found that the twins had been home from school for quite some time.

He primarily learned this because he woke to find them in his room, sitting on the floor while they did their homework. He couldn't have wished for a better pair of guard dogs.

While he hadn't the voice-let alone the strength-to speak, the twins kept him company by talking to him about anything they could think of. Occasionally, he would ask them questions using a pad of paper and a pen they had given him; and sometimes he would use it to briefly answer questions of their own. Mostly, though, he was content to just listen to them. They were an exceptionally bright pair of children, and they had a lot to say.

On the fifth day of his recovery, he suddenly found some inspiration. It had no tune yet, but there was a definite theme and some words that already rhymed in his head. He picked up his paper and pen and began to write. By the time the twins returned from school and bounded into his bedroom, he was nearly finished.

"Did you rest well today?" Porom asked right away.

"'Cause mom said you've been up all day, working on something," Palom added, sounding disapporving. "You're supposed to be sleeping, you know."

In answer, he handed them the poem he had written, and Porom began to read it out loud.

"_It's a feeling I've known before,  
And a thing I have missed so sore:  
A home full of care  
That will always be there,  
Because that's what a family is for._

"_I have a family no more,  
And my heart is all wrent and torn.  
In my heart they all stay  
And will never go away,  
Because that's what a family is for._

"_Now a new one has seen me restored.  
It's a kindness I cannot ignore.  
And they'd do it again,  
Though I've nothing for them,  
Because that's what a family is for._"

Finishing the last verse, they stood back with looks of wonder and appreciation.

"Oh, that's so sweet," Porom exclaimed, handing the paper back. Edward turned it over and wrote them a note on the back.

_"It's not finished yet, there's to be one more verse in the middle somewhere; and I want to work on the wording in some places. There will also be a tune, eventually, though I haven't thought of one yet. You like it, do you?"_

"You bet," Palom agreed after reading the note. "We're all happy to be your family now." With that, the boy flung himself as carefully as possible on top of the king, giving him a gentle hug. Porom scurried around the side of the bed to do the same.

"You practically are family," she added, snuggling him sweetly. "If you're not, I don't know who is."

That felt so remarkably good to hear, after all the time that had passed. Feeling like he might cry from a surge of happy emotions, he hugged them back. He hadn't felt so strong in a very long time.

He would never have a reason to stop breathing ever again.


End file.
